


Taking Time

by ActuallyMe



Series: Time's Up [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, So this is the happier sequel to Time's Up, The ending is a lot more hopeful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23448739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActuallyMe/pseuds/ActuallyMe
Summary: Yaz rests her head on the Doctor’s shoulder. ‘I’d do anything for you, Doctor.’ The admission comes out more intense than Yaz would’ve liked, but it’s out into the universe, now.Sequel to Time's Up.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Series: Time's Up [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685566
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Taking Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissMinton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMinton/gifts).



> You can read this one without reading Time's Up, but you might be a bit lost at the beginning, is all.
> 
> For Tory.

Ryan eventually forgives the Doctor for the incident on Kala 3 with the Daleks and the bomb, but Yaz doesn’t think the Doctor has forgiven herself. Every so often, when they’re supposed to be in the Time Vortex, Yaz wakes up to the sound of the Doctor’s thoughts ruminating. She doesn’t think the Doctor can help it. Ever since that morning in the kitchen, she’ll catch random glimpses into the Doctor’s head. Usually, she leaves it, but tonight it feels more intentional than accidental.

She slides her legs out from under her warm duvet into the slightly cool air and finds her slippers. Yaz pads down the hallway to the console room, where the TARDIS’s door opens to the stars. 

Not the Time Vortex, then.

‘Hello?’ She calls. A gentle presence pushes into her mind, showing the Doctor sitting above the TARDIS, and she accepts the invitation.

Making her way outside, she looks up to find the Doctor’s legs swinging out into nothingness. They’re floating in space, and the Doctor is just looking at the debris around them.

‘Hiya, Yaz,’ she says, not sparing a glance her way. ‘I thought you’d be asleep.’

‘You called me.’

‘Hmm?’

‘With your telepathy?’

The Doctor squints, and Yaz feels the familiar sensation of something pressing into her consciousness. _Not me, this time, no. But someone did invite you._

The TARDIS beeps and clicks, and the Doctor’s concern melts into a wan smile. 

‘The TARDIS?’ Yaz asks. ‘I didn’t know she could do that.’

‘She likes you,’ the Doctor says as if that explains everything.

‘Hmm,’ Yaz sighs and clambers up on top of the time ship to join her friend—even if they do start to regularly have sex, and she has a feeling that the Doctor isn’t yet done with her, they’re friends first. Best friends. 

It’s so quiet in space. She thought it’d be louder, but she quickly learnt that the only sound to be heard out here is the humming of the living machine beneath them, and even that feels muted. The stars, though, those sure aren’t muted. Even through the space-rocks and fallout from the planet, the stars are insanely bright, little pinpricks of pure energy and light,

Yaz sighs and lets her head rest on the Doctor’s shoulder.

‘It shouldn’t be this beautiful,’ the Doctor says, entwining her fingers with Yaz’s. ‘All this destruction and death.’ There’s pain in her voice.

‘Why are you torturing yourself with this? We know you had to save us.’

‘This isn’t Kala 3, Yaz. This is Gallifrey.’ The admission is quiet, and Yaz is sure she would’ve missed it if she weren’t paying careful attention.

‘Oh.’

Yaz wishes she could do the same trick as the Doctor and the TARDIS. Wishes she could project her thoughts without speaking, comfort the Doctor without a word. Looks like she’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.

‘Did you know anyone on Gallifrey before the Master… y’know.’

The Doctor seems to be in a sharing mood because she answers. ‘I thought I did. Looks like everything was a lie, though.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I…’ The Doctor scrubs a hand through her hair. ‘The Master. He showed me something. About the Time Lords.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

The Doctor huffs. ‘I don’t know.’ Yaz is pretty sure that’s all she’ll get from the Doctor, but then she’s speaking again. ‘I just want to be okay. There’s a lot of trauma, and apparently, a lot of things I don’t remember. He told me… it’s so hard to explain.’

‘You can show me,’ Yaz suggests, looking straight out into the void. ‘I don’t mind.’

‘It’s a lot, Yaz. It’s a lot. You don’t know what you’re offering.’

‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. But if you want to, I’m happy to listen, or see.’ She squeezes the Doctor’s hand briefly.

They sit like that for a few minutes before the Doctor finally speaks, jostling Yaz out of her sleepy regard of the twin suns in the distance. ‘Okay. But tell me if it gets too much. Tell me to stop. I don’t want to hurt you, and it is a lot, Yaz.’

Yaz makes a quiet sound of affirmation, and, once granted, the Doctor untangles their hands and places her fingertips on Yaz’s temples. ‘Ready?’ The Doctor asks.

Yaz nods.

She accepts the tentative brush of the Doctor’s mind entering her own, tries to make her mind inviting by thinking of something pleasant, like the warmth of the Doctor’s hand in hers. 

The first images are easy to digest. A little girl found on an alien planet, taken home by her new mother. A happy childhood until a fall, and Yaz jerks when the child hits the ground. But the images don’t stop there, no, the child glows gold and she is replaced with another iteration of herself.

After that comes the litany of probing tests and examinations and deaths. The mother kills the child again and again, and she uses the child’s DNA to change the course of the universe. The child becomes the progenitor of a species without their permission and is forced to relive their artificially imposed thirteen lives over and again.

There’s a lot Yaz doesn’t understand, but the child’s ache becomes hers, their tears now tracking down Yaz’s face.

The Doctor removes her hands, and it takes a good few minutes for Yaz to find her voice. When she does, it’s husky from her quiet sobs. ‘It must be hard to know that your people did that to an innocent child.’

‘They’re not my people, Yaz.’ Yaz squints and the Doctor huffs. ‘I’m the Timeless Child; it’s me. But I don’t remember any of what I just showed you. I saw it through someone else’s perspective. They’ve been wiping my memory for Rassilon knows how many years. That’s what the Master showed me on Gallifrey.’

The enormity of what she’s been trying to tell her sinks in. The thought that the Doctor’s own mother could do that to her makes her want to be sick. She swallows back the bile. This isn’t about her. This is about the Doctor and her pain. Still, Yaz needs a minute. The Doctor lets her have as much time as she needs.

Finally, after the silence has dragged on a little too long to be comfortable, Yaz sighs and finds the Doctor’s hand again. ‘That must’ve been awful, to have someone who treated you so badly be the person to tell you.’

‘It were a bit strange, yeah,’ the Doctor says, her voice subdued. ‘It hurt my head, like there were something I needed to remember but couldn’t. I still get those headaches.’

‘Is there, like, space therapy? I know they’re not really repressed memories and were taken from you, but maybe therapy could help you remember?’ Yaz has been to therapy. It helped her when she was in a dark place. Maybe it could help the Doctor.

The Doctor laughs, but it’s not unkind. Her laughter never is. ‘I know you’re being serious, but I don’t know if I could ever open up enough to go to therapy. The thought of someone rooting around my head makes me sick, and most therapists who know about Time Lords are extremely telepathic. I’m not sure I would even be believed if I told anyone about this.’

‘You’re telepathic,’ she says because of course, that’s what she latches on to.

‘Only a little bit. The TARDIS is more telepathic than I am.’

‘Oh.’ Yaz tries to push her thoughts out again and finds the effort is futile.

‘Yeah, if you’re super telepathic, then you can go through someone’s head without them ever knowing. Whenever I try, it’s really obvious. It’s an inelegant system.’ The Doctor pouts, and Yaz smiles when their pinkies brush up against each other.

‘Feeling better, then?’ She asks, and the Doctor nods. ‘Yeah, talking helped. Well, not talking, but y’know. Thanks.’

Yaz rests her head on the Doctor’s shoulder. ‘I’d do anything for you, Doctor.’ The admission comes out more intense than Yaz would’ve liked, but it’s out into the universe, now. 

The Doctor wraps an arm around her. ‘Me, too.’

‘Come to bed with me? Not for, y’know, but I think I need a cuddle.’ Yaz tumbles over the words.

‘Sounds nice.’ The Doctor places a kiss on Yaz’s head. ‘C’mon, then. It’s late, and I know how you humans need your sleep.’

Yaz nods, and they climb back down into the TARDIS.

Their hands never separate as they walk to her bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> I know y'all didn't really like Time's Up because two (2) people commented, one of whom it was a gift for. But the sequel is another gift! Thank you to those who commented. Writing is hard and validation is nice.
> 
> Shoutout to GlitterIbbur and bells_n_roses for betaing and checking for errors.


End file.
